“Never. Never again. You promised, Harry.”
Harry didn’t seem to pay attention as he turned to Hagrid. “What was in that second vault?”
Amaryllis was curious to, but kept her questions to herself. She must have zoned out in the bank when Hagrid informed the elf—goblin, as Hagrid so graciously corrected her earlier, he had another stop. It didn’t click in her mind when they descent and she had thought the next trip was just that; her last, back up. Not further down.
“Sorry ‘bout that, Amaryllis. Never was fond of those things. One speed.” Hagrid huffed as they walked further away from that place.
“Hagrid?” Harry repeated, asking the same question.
“Just something Dumbledore asked me to pick up for him. No worries. Let’s be gettin’ yer school supplies.”
Amaryllis shook her head at her brother. Whatever Hagrid picked up was none of their business. They barely knew him, just as he barely knew them. He had no obligation to tell them what it was he picked up in that vault. And she would rather focus on something other than the impending doom of a ride just to get money out of a bank.
Hagrid seemed on the same page as he quickly changed the topic with a question. “What’s first on yer lists?”
Amaryllis left the reading to Harry, knowing it would take her forever to even read on supply on that list and have Hagrid ask questions she wasn’t ready to answer. Considering she herself didn’t have them, she tended to avoid having others know about her disabilities. And Harry had no qualms about keeping them to himself either, as he would always say; it was her story to tell, not his.
Harry raised the parchment paper and stared at the list, reading off the first thing he saw. “A uniform? Three black robes and… a pointed hat?”
Amaryllis snorted. She pictured the with from The Wizard of Oz with a boil on the side of her face wearing dark robes and a pointed hat that flopped to the side slightly. The look was doubtful as no one she had seen since they had gotten to Diagon Alley looked even close to what she pictured, but a pointed hat had done it in for her.
“You’ll find all that at Madam Malkin’s. Best robe maker in all of Diagon Alley.”
“It doesn’t have…” Amaryllis sighed heavily, shoulders slumping as Hagrid ignored her.
Hagrid began to walk off before she could finish her sentence. Her and Harry had gone years with cheap clothing from second hand stores that anywhere else wouldn’t have mattered to either of them, but she left it be and followed behind Hagrid as he lead them to the front of a purple exterior shop that had Madam Malkin’s in bronze cursive lettering above a bay window.
Hagrid turned to them both, seeming unsure of what he was going to ask. “Would yeh two mind if I slip away for a pick-me-up at the Leaky Cauldron while yeh get your robes? Those Gringotts carts get me all the time.”
Maybe it was because she hated them just as much, because Hagrid looked greener than she felt. She wanted to ask why he succumbed himself to that torture of going down with him if he hated them so much, but Harry had spoke up after she nodded at him.
“‘Memeber, gold’s are Galleons, seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon, and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle.”
Harry nodded, but she was lost.
“What just happened?”
Harry chuckled, walking toward the entrance as Hagrid walked away.
They were left alone once again, but it didn’t bother either one. Being left alone was what they were good at. It had always just been them against their their mother’s side of the family. Now it was them against… nothing. There hadn’t been a single issue they ran into besides this morning. Amaryllis hadn’t felt such a free feeling of no worries in so long she wanted to enjoy it. There was no telling what the school would be like.
“You zoned out when Hagrid told us how the money works.”
Amaryllis glared at her brother. “I can’t help it. I got to thinking about something, which led to another, and then ‘bam’ we were back on that death trap—”
“It wasn’t.”
She ignored his comment and continued, “heading to that other vault when I thought we were leaving—”
“Again, you didn’t pay attention when Griphook led up to the cart.”
“Shut up,” Amaryllis said, glaring at her brother. “As I was saying, and was trying to keep the contents of my stomach from spilling all over where we had to sit, thank you very much.”
“Ah, yes. Thank you for not desecrating our seats with your vomit. Can we get our uniforms now?”
Amaryllis pouted, staring at the store as Harry opened the door, waiting for her. “Fine.”
A squat woman dressed in mauve smiled over at them.
Amaryllis guess she was Madam Malkin as pins stuck outward the between her teeth. Her eyes widened when the woman opened her mouth, but the pins didn’t drop. They float midair.
“Hogwarts, dears? Got the lot here- another young man being fitted up just now, in fact.”
Amaryllis noticed a boy around their age with a pale, pointed face on a bar stool in the back. Another witch was pining up black robes around him while everything seemed to float around her with ease.
She turned to speak to Harry but noticed Madam Malkin had already begun to bring him over to a stool beside the boy.
“I’ll be right with you, dear.” The woman who worked on the boy with platinum blond hair said without glancing in her direction.
“That’s fine. I can wait.”
“Hello,” the boy said, glancing between them. “Hogwarts, too?”
Harry hummed a reply, making her roll her eyes as she responded. “Yes.”
Amaryllis hadn’t expected to hear how the boy reminded her of Dudley, but it had instantly turned her away from seeking him out at the school she unfortunately would attend with him.
First possible friend had hit the drain quicker than Uncle Vernon’s chin.
She wondered how it was possible for them to run into the one boy that acted like Dudley when their were thousands of witches and wizards outside the shop. Did the universe hate them that much? Was it too much to ask for a few kids their age they could know before school started that were decent?
“—ou?”
“Oi. You deaf?”
Amaryllis tuned back as she heard the snide remark in the boys question. “What? Were you speaking to me?”
The boy rolled his eyes. “Of course. Who else would I be speaking to?”
Amaryllis glanced around the place to see a few other kids waiting. Their eyes went back and forth between her and the platinum blond boy. She shrugged, wondering if he had a problem seeing to, but didn’t question it. “Literally anyone else in this building? What was your question?”
“Do. You. Play. Quidditch?”
Her nose scrunched up as he pronounced each word as a sentence. “Uh, no. I don’t even know what that is.”
The boy’s face contorted into a scowl at her. “Did your parents make you live in a hole?”
Harry spoke for them both when he responded. “No, they’re dead.”
Amaryllis curled her hands into fists as the next words out of the boys mouth had her ready to pounce on him.
His sky blue eyes didn’t change the slightest as he glanced between them both. “Oh, siblings. Sorry. But they were our kind, right?”
“What does that matter?” Amaryllis didn’t hold back as she shot back her own question. There wasn’t an ounce of sincerity in his voice as he apologized and she wouldn’t forgive that so easily.
“Because the other sort don’t belong. They weren’t brought up to know our ways. Most haven’t even heard of Hogwarts until they got their letters, ya know?”
Madam Malkin tapped Harry on the shoulder before giving her a quick look. “Hop up here, dear. I’ll get your measurements and robes ready in a jiffy.”
There was nothing more she wanted than to leave the robe shop.
Stepping onto the platform Harry got off, Madam Malkin was quick to work fitting the black fabric around her. She stood as still as possible for a girl that couldn’t sit still for more than a few seconds.
“I say, look at that man,” the boy pointed out the window.
“That’s Hagrid,” Harry said before she could speak. “He works at Hogwarts.”
She didn’t mind because any interaction with the blond boy had her head hurt with how insufferable he was. She didn’t know how Harry kept going, but if it kept him off the topic of their parents, it didn’t matter.
“Oh, I’ve heard of him.” The boy sneered over at her before he turned his attention back to Harry. “He’s sort of a servant, isn’t he?”
“You—”
Harry cut her off before the boy next to her picked up on her anger and fed off it. “He’s a gamekeeper.”
Her brother gave her a pointed look before continuing the absurd conversation with the boy.
“Yes, exactly. I heard he’s sort of a savage – lives in a hut on the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tried to do magic, and ends up setting fire to his bed.”
Harry’s tone turned cold. She hadn’t heard that tone except when he spoke toward their Uncle. “I think he’s brilliant.”
“Do you?” said the boy, with a slight sneer.
“All done, dear.”
Amaryllis hopped off the platform, bidding Madam Malkin a quick ‘thank you’ as she grabbed her brothers hand and turned to the blond boy. “It was a displeasure meeting you. Please, have a horrible day.”
Harry’s mouth hung open as she dragged him out of Madam Malkin’s where Hagrid stood.